Unele consideraţii asupra vaselor cucuteniene antropomorfe şi antropomorfizate

Abstract

In this paper, the author addresses the issue of Cucutenian anthropomorphic and anthropomorphized vessels in terms of the complex ensemble represented by the actual shape of the vessels and their decor (painted, incised and grooved), coherently placed in horizontal registers and unitary vertical compositions. In this sense, the well-known Cucutenian ornaments: egg-like shapes, spiral heads, volutes, geometric motifs and the angular meanders etc. were used, regardless of the decorative techniques employed by the painters of Cucutenian ceramics, for rendering different realities, in this case the female body. These motifs, isolated or in association, become signs and symbols, speaking about a peculiar anthropomorphist predisposition, perhaps related to the rendering of the Great Mother archetype (Great Mother Goddess), multiplied in the human world. Under these circumstances, the “simple” ceramic forms like goblets, cups, amphorae, pyriform vessels, etc. were anthropomorphized too, thus expanding the repertoire of this category of artifacts. These vessels served, probably, as cult accessories/paraphernalia (in family, in micro or macro community) as part of Aeneolithic initiation or passage rites and rituals (marriage, pregnancy and childbirth, funeral), calendar related rites, consecratory, votive and apotropaic, talking about the sacredness of Cucutenian daily life, with a vital role in the existence of these human communities, in which visual and symbolic communication has a notable value.

Keywords: anthropomorphic vessels, anthropomorphism, the Great Mother archetype, Cucuteni-Tripolie.